Small Steps Page 5

  “It’s so cute,” Sharese said. “Can I have it?”

  “It’s for a school project.”

  “I want it,” said Sharese.

  Armpit tightened his grip on Coo. “It belongs to my neighbor.” He’d fight all of them if he had to, before giving Coo up.

  “That little white retard!” said Cole. “I seen you hangin’ with her. Man, what’s her problem?” He laughed.

  Cole wasn’t expecting an answer, but Armpit copied Ginny’s tactic and gave him one.

  “There was some bleeding inside her brain when she was born.”

  “Oh,” Cole said. “Too bad.”

  Armpit slowly walked around the Mustang.

  “What are you going to school for?” Cole shouted at him. “Come work with us, and you’ll make all the money you’ll ever need.”

  “Thanks, but it’s just something I got to do.”

  He kept walking.

  He heard the car door shut behind him but didn’t turn around. A moment later he saw the car driving past him. Someone shouted “Fool!” out the window.

  Fifteen minutes later he stood in front of the class, all eyes on him, including Tatiana’s.

  “This is Coo,” he began.

  Everybody laughed.

  “Coo has leukemia.”

  Some even laughed at that, too.

  It wasn’t that they were cruel. All the other speeches had been humorous and they expected more of the same. The sight of Armpit, the biggest and toughest kid in class, holding the little baby toy just added to the comedy, and it took a while for what he was saying to sink in.

  He could feel his sweat dripping down his side and hoped it didn’t show on his shirt.

  “Coo belongs to my neighbor, Ginny. She has cerebral palsy.”

  “You just said she had leukemia,” said Claire, Tatiana’s friend.

  “Coo has leukemia. Ginny has cerebral palsy. That’s why Coo should be elected ruler of the world. Because Coo gives her comfort, courage, and confidence.”

  That was supposed to be his closing sentence. He didn’t mean to say it so soon. He fumbled with his notecards, but he’d already gotten off wrong, so he just winged it.

  “All her life, Ginny has had trouble walking and talking. Some kids at her school call her ’tard, you know, short for retard, but she’s not retarded. She’s really smart. It’s just that her brain has difficulty processing information. It’s like she has to decode everything first. That’s why she stutters when she talks. She knows what she wants to say, but it’s like her brain has trouble sending the signal to her mouth. And then if people pressure her, it just gets worse and worse, and she sometimes has these spastic seizures.”

  “And you want her to be ruler of the world?” somebody asked. Several people laughed.

  “No, you should vote for Coo, Ginny’s favorite stuffed animal. See, since I don’t own any stuffed animals, Ginny gave me Coo. I told her I didn’t want her favorite, you know, ’cause it’s just for a stupid assignment.”

  The class erupted in laughter and Armpit realized that he probably shouldn’t have called it a stupid assignment in front of Coach Simmons. He pressed on. “But Ginny said I had to take Coo. She said none of her others were as strong or as brave as Coo. Well, even though Ginny is only ten years old and has cerebral palsy and weighs less than sixty pounds, she’s the strongest and bravest person I know. So if Coo could do that for Ginny, imagine what Coo could do for the world. So vote for Coo. Thanks.”

  He made his way back to his seat without looking at anyone. He had no idea if anything he’d said made any sense. At least it was over.

  He was the first one out the door when the bell rang.

  “Theodore,” came a voice from behind him, and then Tatiana’s hand was on his arm.

  “I thought your speech was really sweet.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t have any stuffed animals, so I had to borrow one.”

  She smiled her crooked smile. “You were really nervous, weren’t you?”

  “Sort of, yeah.”

  “I could tell. Don’t worry. You did a really good job. I’m going to vote for Coo.”

  He smiled. “Thanks. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me, but it would make Ginny really happy if Coo won.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Sure.” He handed the stuffed animal to Tatiana.

  “What exactly is a coo?”

  Armpit laughed. “I don’t know, some kind of bunny-person-thingy.”

  Tatiana hugged Coo. “It feels so soft. I like the way you said Coo will give you courage, comfort, and strength.”

  He didn’t correct her.

  “Armpit! Hey, Armpit!”

  X-Ray came breezing down the hall. “Armpit! I thought I’d never find you.”

  He greeted Tatiana with a “hey,” then pulled a wad of money out of his pocket and started counting it. “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred.” He handed Armpit a hundred dollars but wasn’t finished yet.

  “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, two hundred.”

  He was still not finished.

  “Twenty, forty, sixty . . .”

  Tatiana was no longer smiling. “I better go,” she said, handing Coo back to Armpit.

  “Uh, see you later,” Armpit said to her, but she didn’t turn around as she quickly walked away.

  X-Ray counted out another hundred dollars. In total, X-Ray gave him five hundred and thirty dollars.

  Armpit could hardly believe it. He had gotten practically all his money back. It was money he’d thought he’d never see again. “Was it the guys in the Suburban?”

  “Those clowns? Hell no! A lady called me this morning. Wanted four tickets for her kid’s birthday. The whole thing took twenty minutes. See, that’s the way you do business. Not some jokers stringing you along like you’re a yo-yo.”

  Armpit felt bad for having doubted X-Ray. “Wait a second,” he said. “Four tickets should be five hundred and forty.”

  “Oh, yeah, I needed to borrow ten. You don’t mind, do you?”

  10

  It’s a six-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Baton Rouge to Houston along I-10. Six buses and two trucks were making the journey. Kaira DeLeon’s bus was equipped with a flat-screen TV, a DVD player, two video game players, a refrigerator, a microwave, a treadmill, and a bathroom that included a shower as well as a makeup area. The only person on that bus, however, was the bus driver.

  Kaira was sick of being alone and so had asked the guys in the band if she could ride with them. It was her first time on their bus and she knew her mother would freak if she found out. Her mother imagined all kinds of wild goings-on with a rock ’n’ roll band, but all they were doing was playing cards. Tim B, the lead guitarist, had given her a beer, but she didn’t like the taste and only took a few sips to be polite.

  “Which way do we pass this time?” asked Duncan, a bald man with a goatee. He wore dark sunglasses, indoors or out. As far as Kaira could tell, all bass players always wore sunglasses.

  “Left,” said Cotton, the drummer, who then handed three cards to Kaira. Cotton was also bald, but that was because he shaved his head. Duncan still had hair on the sides.

  “We passed left last time,” said Billy Goat, whose last name was really Gotleib. He played keyboard.

  “Too late, I already picked up my cards,” said Cotton.

  They may have been wild rock ’n’ rollers at one time in their lives, but to Kaira they just seemed like a bunch of old men.

  The Grateful Dead was playing over the sound system. She found the music monotonous but didn’t dare say so out loud. That would have been sacrilege to these guys. She also pretended their cigarette smoke didn’t bother her. Anything was better than another long ride alone.

  She knew they all thought she was just a spoiled prima donna who didn’t know anything about music. She’d heard them say as much. They’d been making music long before she was born, and often mentioned names of famous people they’d played with, names she’d n
ever heard.

  “Okay, who’s got the two of clubs?” Kaira asked. “Oh, I do.” She giggled, then placed the card on the coffee table.

  She had never played hearts with real people before, only on a computer, and was losing badly. It seemed like every hand she got stuck with the queen of spades.

  The bus had two couches set up at a right angle, with a coffee table in the center “for drinks and feet.” Those were Cotton’s words. Just about everything he said made her laugh.

  Three other band members and all three backup singers had missed the bus. They would have to find their own way to Houston.

  “Goin’ to Texas, we should listen to some Texas music,” said Tim B. He stood up, then stumbled and fell against the side of the couch. Kaira didn’t know if this was caused by the bus’s movement or by what he’d been drinking.

  “I’m all right,” he said, getting back to his feet, then made his way to the CD rack. “Hey, Kaira, you ever heard of Janis Joplin?”

  Kaira hesitated a moment, then said, “Oh, yeah, she really rocks!”

  Cotton saw right through her. “You never heard of her, have you?”

  “Uh, maybe, I’m not sure.”

  “If you heard her, you’d know,” he said.

  “We’re talking real music,” Tim B said as he fumbled with the CD. “Raw and to the bone.”

  “And no cutesy-dootsy backup singers,” said Duncan.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Cotton, clinking beer bottles with him.

  Kaira didn’t like the backup singers any better than they did, but El Genius said they added sexual energy.

  “Music needs blank spaces sometimes,” Cotton said. “They take up all the blank spaces.”

  “Now you’re talkin’ about music,” said Billy Goat. “Nobody makes real music anymore. It’s all just a big show.”

  “Just background for MTV,” said Duncan. “It’s almost impossible for a real musician to do anything worth listening to anymore. Now it’s all I-don’t-know-what.”

  “Don’t listen to them, Kaira,” said Cotton. “They been saying the same thing for the last twenty-five years.”

  Janis Joplin’s voice came over the speakers. Kaira hadn’t heard her before, but she liked her right off. Her raspy voice seemed to drip emotion. There was a kind of raw energy to the music, not like the polished songs she sang, in which every note was carefully planned and orchestrated.

  “Now, that’s the way rock ’n’ roll’s supposed to be,” said Tim B, half sitting down, half falling onto the couch.

  “She’s from Port Arthur, Texas,” said Cotton.

  “Where’s that?”

  None of the band members seemed to know.

  “Somewhere in Texas,” said Cotton.

  Kaira laughed.

  “So, Kaira,” said Billy Goat. “I thought your mama didn’t allow you to ride with us.”

  “She doesn’t know I’m here,” said Kaira. “Anyway, I got Fred to protect me from you dirty old men.”

  The Doofus was sitting up front next to the driver.

  “Yeah, well, tell you what,” said Billy Goat. “Your mama would be a lot better off if she kept her watchful eye on that husband of hers instead of on you.”

  “Don’t go there,” said Cotton.

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Kaira.

  “Her watchful eye . . . ,” sang Tim B.

  “It’s nothing,” said Cotton.

  “She’s a grown girl,” said Billy. “She might as well know the truth.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” said Cotton.

  “What?” asked Kaira.

  “All I’m saying,” said Billy, “is your mama would be better off if she kept one eye on her husband and one eye on Aileen.”

  “And all I’m saying,” said Cotton, “is when you don’t know what you’re talking about, you shouldn’t talk so much.”

  “Aileen’s my mom’s friend,” said Kaira. “They go shopping together.”

  “She’s your dad’s friend too,” Tim B said with a laugh.

  “He’s not my dad,” said Kaira.

  “The girl likes to shop, I’ll give you that,” said Duncan. “But the question is this: whose money is she spending?”

  Aileen was the person in charge of coordinating all the travel arrangements for the tour. She had been the one who went and got Pillow when Kaira had left it behind in Connecticut. Kaira’s father had given Pillow to her when she was three years old. When Aileen had called the hotel, the manager said they hadn’t found any extra pillows, but Aileen didn’t take no for an answer. She took a flight back to Connecticut, went to the hotel, and personally searched the laundry room until she found it.

  Kaira didn’t know what to think now. Aileen just seemed to be someone who really had her act together. So besides the fact that Aileen would be betraying Kaira’s mother, Kaira just couldn’t imagine someone as smart and as cool as her being involved with someone as gross as El Genius.

  Before Aileen started going along with Kaira’s mother on her shopping sprees, Kaira’s mother usually came home looking all gaudy and ridiculous. When Aileen went with her, the stuff she bought actually looked pretty good on her.

  Aileen had good taste. At least in clothes.

  Well, if El Genius really was cheating on her mother, then maybe that wasn’t all bad, Kaira decided. Maybe her mom would divorce the freak!

  She listened to Janis sing the blues, her voice filled with suffering, yet tenderness.

  “Maybe we can meet Janis while we’re in Texas?” she said.

  Duncan and Tim B laughed.

  “We’ll all be meeting Janis someday,” said Cotton. “But it won’t be in Texas.”

  Janis had died of a drug overdose over forty years ago. She was only twenty-seven at the time.

  “Hey, Kaira, ever hear of the Beatles?” asked Duncan.

  “Who?” asked Kaira.

  “You got to be kiddin’ me,” said Duncan. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Kaira shrugged.

  Cotton laughed. “She’s playing with you, man.”

  Duncan wasn’t so sure.

  When they arrived at the hotel in Houston, Aileen was there to give them all their room keys and schedules. She had arrived earlier and had already gotten everybody checked in. They could just go right to their rooms. Their luggage would be brought up.

  “You’re Rhoda Morgenstern,” she told Kaira as she handed her the key.

  Kaira studied Aileen’s face for some hint of betrayal, but her expression gave nothing away.

  Even in her high heels, Aileen was shorter than Kaira. Everything about her was small: her waist, her feet, her ears, her mouth. She was stylish, efficient, and compact, like a cell phone.

  “Do you know who Rhoda is?” Aileen asked.

  “Mary Tyler Moore’s best friend,” said Kaira.

  “Actually, Mary Richards’s best friend,” said Aileen.

  It was a game they had. Aileen always registered Kaira under an assumed name so she wouldn’t be hassled by fans. Aileen chose characters from old TV shows, but Kaira hadn’t been stumped yet.

  She watched too much TV.

  11

  X-Ray picked up Armpit at school; then they drove to South Congress Avenue in search of a barbecue joint called Smokestack Lightnin’. Somebody by the name of Murdock wanted two tickets.

  “I don’t feel comfortable on someone else’s territory,” X-Ray had said.

  “How come he couldn’t meet you at the H-E-B?”

  “Said he couldn’t get away. Works from six in the morning until midnight.”

  Armpit thought that sounded a little suspicious.

  So did X-Ray. That was why he wanted Armpit along.

  “I got to be at work at one,” Armpit reminded him.

  “I’ll get you there,” X-Ray assured him.

  Congress Avenue was called that because at its north end stood the majestic state capitol building, with its dome and white co
lumns. This was where the Texas congress met, but only every other year, so they couldn’t cause too much damage.

  Just south of the capitol was the financial and theater district, and then the Congress Street Bridge, which crossed over Town Lake. A colony of more than a million Mexican free-tailed bats lived in the cracks and crevices on the underside of the bridge. Several fancy hotels lined the banks of the lake—which actually was not a lake at all but a river—and tourists would gather at sundown to watch the bats swarm out from under the bridge as they went in search of food.

  They kept the mosquito population under control.

  “Is Murdock his first name or his last?” Armpit asked as they drove across the bridge.

  A girl wearing very short pants and a bikini top was jogging with her dog.

  “Whoo! Whoo!” X-Ray shouted through Armpit’s open window.

  The girl raised her middle finger.

  South Congress Avenue hardly resembled the street north of the river. Armpit looked out at boarded-up buildings, liquor stores, bars, and tattoo parlors. At night the area would come alive with some of the best music in Austin, but in the heat and glare of the late-morning sun, it seemed as if the entire street suffered from a giant hangover.

  “There it is,” said X-Ray.

  SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN was painted in brown letters on the smoky glass of a storefront restaurant located next to the Fingernail Emporium. Armpit could smell the slow-cooked meat as soon as he stepped out of the car. If they hadn’t been there to sell tickets, he wouldn’t have minded a sausage wrap or a chopped-beef sandwich. He had missed lunch, thanks to X-Ray.

  “Here, you better hold these,” X-Ray said, handing Armpit the tickets.

  He hadn’t seen them since the day they bought them. Once again, he noticed This ticket may not be resold clearly printed on the back.

  A bell on the door jangled as X-Ray pushed it open. Armpit followed him inside.

  Only a couple of tables were occupied, but it wasn’t noon yet. A roll of brown paper towels stood in the center of every table, along with various bottles of hot sauce.

  They made their way to the front.

  “What can I get you?” asked the man behind the counter. Various meats were on display behind a dirty glass window.